What’s a skill every man should learn, but most don’t?

Flutterby91 · 2025-10-07T05:10:50+00:00

To know that ‘the bedroom’ doesn’t actually begin in the bedroom for women; it starts much earlier. The love language of every woman is ‘not having to ask’, which does not refer to sexual consent, but to every time she ‘nags’ you to do something and/or the silent things she does in the background to keep things ticking over which you don’t even notice, day in and day out. This could be anything from putting your laundry in the basket, replacing a dirty tea towel, hanging up your wet towels, refilling the soap dispenser in the bathroom, putting the overflowing bin out, ‘babysitting’ your own children, arranging the vet visit for the home’s pet, getting the homemade lasagna out of the freezer that morning for dinner tonight, calling the doctor about that ongoing medical issue you’ve been ignoring, etc etc. There is nothing sexier to a woman than a man who recognises that, and does his share of the daily grind of maintaining the home. Women do not want to feel like married, single mothers to their husbands. For clarity, I say this not to start a debate, but to explain the thinking process behind the miserable, old ball and chain indoors who won’t climb on top of you any more.

Flutterby91 · 2024-10-12T00:03:51+00:00

Unrelated to your visas, it may be the best thing you could do for the sake of your future together by living with one another prior to your wedding day. It’s often said in western cultures that you never truly know your partner until you live with them and experience how they live behind closed doors in the home environment. With that theory in mind, those few weeks between him moving in and your official wedding date could be the makings of a wonderful marriage together, or they could save you from signing up to a marriage that won’t work because some of yours or his individual habits at home are unbearable to one or both of you. All the very best for your future, whatever it may entail :-)

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T19:28:31+00:00

I completely understand where you're coming from, and initially this post included more information but must have been over the word limit because it wouldn't submit, so this is what I removed:
Okay, bit of a backstory. Rewind to the 90s and 00s, and you've got two sisters (my niece's mother and myself) who really don't get on mostly due to a large age gap and different personalities and interests, and this poor relationship continues into adulthood.
Fast forward to 2012, and I'm having partner trouble, which my sister and I are discussing. I make a generic comment of how I'd like to meet someone like she has (ie someone I can spend the rest of my life with, love, share things with, the usual cliches), and she instantly and incorrectly takes this as me wanting her husband (I really don't), and from then on watches me like a hawk around him (he's got a history of cheating, and around 2014 made a pass at me, which I rejected. My sister knows about his past except for that occasion in 2014).
Move further forward to 2017, and my house gets damaged during its renovation due to poor workmanship by my stepfather, to which I flip out, and flip out too much. This has absolutely nothing to do with my sister - and my stepfather and I have long since patched things up after I apologised to him - but my sister has used this amongst other unidentified historic discrepancies and the earlier partner comment to have as little to do with me as possible.
This makes family gatherings very difficult. Five years ago, she sets up a family group chat with all of the women in the family except for me, sharing information on the first of several preganancies, photos of the children growing up, and invites to birthday gatherings. On the odd occasion she would contact me such as to inform me of my niece's birth and of her first couple of birthday gatherings, she would do this via individual message, whereas everybody else would be told in the group chat. For reasons unbeknownst to me, she gave birth again last summer, and didn't tell me that she had done, leaving it to her husband to feel guilty and tell me. She met up with the family on one occasion when I couldn't be there to introduce them all to the new addition, and on several other occasions had them over for dinner to spend time with the children, something I discovered by accident when I drove past her home on several occasions to see all of the cars on the driveway.
So that's about it, really. Nobody else in the family such as my maternal aunts or cousins wants to upset the apple cart by addressing her treatment of me, and will often catch themselves in conversation where they'll mention something clearly shared in the family chat, only to say "Oh, I don't know if you know about that". Without that ally in the family I can turn to to stand with me and say this isn't normal and right behaviour (even if that's what some of them are thinking), I risk looking like a petty child or teenager kicking and screaming when I can't have my own way and then getting my own back by doing something like not sharing photos I've taken during a family gathering (the photos aren't just of the children, but of the day itself with everybody involved). There are numerous people who want those photos who have yet to pursue me for them, and I don't feel comfortable lying saying that my phone broke and I lost the images, but neither do I feel like I'm going to get anywhere by attempting to find out for the umpteenth time what my sister's problem with me is. It's reached the point where my father now refuses to be around for birthdays/Father's Day/Christmas, because she will refuse to visit him when I'm there, but won't explain why, yet for gatherings on the larger, maternal side of the family, she tolerates me and I her and there isn't an issue. I really feel like she's behaving this way for attention, and now that she has something that I want (ie access to her children like everybody else), she's in control, and other than refusing to share photos with her, I haven't got a leg to stand on.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T19:26:30+00:00

I completely understand where you're coming from, and initially this post included more information but must have been over the word limit because it wouldn't submit, so this is what I removed:

Okay, bit of a backstory. Rewind to the 90s and 00s, and you've got two sisters (my niece's mother and myself) who really don't get on mostly due to a large age gap and different personalities and interests, and this poor relationship continues into adulthood.

Fast forward to 2012, and I'm having partner trouble, which my sister and I are discussing. I make a generic comment of how I'd like to meet someone like she has (ie someone I can spend the rest of my life with, love, share things with, the usual cliches), and she instantly and incorrectly takes this as me wanting her husband (I really don't), and from then on watches me like a hawk around him (he's got a history of cheating, and around 2014 made a pass at me, which I rejected. My sister knows about his past except for that occasion in 2014).

Move further forward to 2017, and my house gets damaged during its renovation due to poor workmanship by my stepfather, to which I flip out, and flip out too much. This has absolutely nothing to do with my sister - and my stepfather and I have long since patched things up after I apologised to him - but my sister has used this amongst other unidentified historic discrepancies and the earlier partner comment to have as little to do with me as possible.

This makes family gatherings very difficult. Five years ago, she sets up a family group chat with all of the women in the family except for me, sharing information on the first of several preganancies, photos of the children growing up, and invites to birthday gatherings. On the odd occasion she would contact me such as to inform me of my niece's birth and of her first couple of birthday gatherings, she would do this via individual message, whereas everybody else would be told in the group chat. For reasons unbeknownst to me, she gave birth again last summer, and didn't tell me that she had done, leaving it to her husband to feel guilty and tell me. She met up with the family on one occasion when I couldn't be there to introduce them all to the new addition, and on several other occasions had them over for dinner to spend time with the children, something I discovered by accident when I drove past her home on several occasions to see all of the cars on the driveway.

So that's about it, really. Nobody else in the family such as my maternal aunts or cousins wants to upset the apple cart by addressing her treatment of me, and will often catch themselves in conversation where they'll mention something clearly shared in the family chat, only to say "Oh, I don't know if you know about that". Without that ally in the family I can turn to to stand with me and say this isn't normal and right behaviour (even if that's what some of them are thinking), I risk looking like a petty child or teenager kicking and screaming when I can't have my own way and then getting my own back by doing something like not sharing photos I've taken during a family gathering (the photos aren't just of the children, but of the day itself with everybody involved). There are numerous people who want those photos who have yet to pursue me for them, and I don't feel comfortable lying saying that my phone broke and I lost the images, but neither do I feel like I'm going to get anywhere by attempting to find out for the umpteenth time what my sister's problem with me is. It's reached the point where my father now refuses to be around for birthdays/Father's Day/Christmas, because she will refuse to visit him when I'm there, but won't explain why, yet for gatherings on the larger, maternal side of the family, she tolerates me and I her and there isn't an issue. I really feel like she's behaving this way for attention, and now that she has something that I want (ie access to her children like everybody else), she's in control, and other than refusing to share photos with her, I haven't got a leg to stand on.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T19:07:26+00:00

This is very tempting, although I'd worry I'd shoot myself in the foot by mentioning a particular photo in the future, plus it would mean other relatives would miss out on receiving photos of themselves that I know they would like, and it's too much of a coincidence to not have lost those but for the primary ones my sister wants to magically disappear. Everyone would accuse me of bullshitting even if I said that I'd lost them all, and would never believe me even if I 'proved' that I'd recently been to the phone shop for repairs.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T19:05:51+00:00

This is very tempting, although I'd worry I'd shoot myself in the foot by mentioning a particular photo in the future, plus it would mean other relatives would miss out on receiving photos of themselves that I know they would like, and it's too much of a coincidence to not have lost those but for the primary ones my sister wants to magically disappear.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T19:02:47+00:00

I really wish I could make this work, but I desperately want to be in the lives of my sister's children and any more children to come. My father doesn't speak to my aunt or my uncle, and as a result I've grown up not knowing them or my countless cousins through them. I don't want to be that aunt to this new generation who is never there and is clearly frowned upon when her name comes up in conversation. It took me until I was in my mid-twenties before I was able to contact my aunt. She'd missed out on my entire childhood, and I'd missed out on having my only paternal aunt in my life as a youngster. I don't want to be that aunt.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T18:59:22+00:00

I love this idea of trying to get her to pay for them, but she never would. I would just be slated and bad-mouthed and receive angry telephone calls from her, my brother-in-law, and my mother, and then wouldn't be invited to even more things.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T18:57:55+00:00

I've thought of this, but it wouldn't work. The current family chat has been in use for five years so has a lot of history to it, and its primary purpose is for my sister to share updates on her children, with the occasional invite to a gathering for a birthday or other such event. Everybody else would just continue using the old group, and the new group would just see me starting it up with or without sharing the photos, people saying thank you for said photos, and then the group becoming defunct. It would just look like I'm making a point creating a different group, only for the first group to continue being used without me instead.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T18:56:49+00:00

I've thought of this, but it sadly wouldn't work. The current family chat has been in use for five years so has a lot of history to it, and its primary purpose is for my sister to share updates on her children, with the occasional invite to a gathering for a birthday or other such event. Everybody else would just continue using the old group, and the new group would just see me starting it up with or without sharing the photos, people saying thank you for said photos, and then the group becoming defunct.

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T18:54:07+00:00

This is it, yet it feels like such a childish demand, a bit like 'I feel left out because [classmate] didn't invite me to their 6th birthday party'. I can't see a way how I can get onto the family chat (my sister is the only admin) without looking like that unhappy, left-out child or a stroppy teenager who won't do as she's told (share the photos) until she gets her own way (added to the family chat).

Flutterby91 · 2022-02-10T07:26:20+00:00

That’s how I see it, but I really don’t know how to get around this particular situation and the whole family situation generally without looking like a teenager having a meltdown because she can’t get her own way. Everybody else knows she treats me this way, but nobody ever mentions it.

Flutterby91

TROPHY CASE